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Tag Archives: traveling with an autistic child

A photo (or perhaps a social story with photos?) a day for autism acceptance in April.

Here is the social story I created for our recent trip to Darwin. It is a powerpoint presentation, but I used the Slide Shark app to upload it to the ipad. I tried to keep the details as real as possible as this is what best suits my little 6yo.

For those of you who do not know what a social story is, please have a look at this site. Social Stories were a concept developed by Carol Gray to assist people with autism to prepare for and better understand the details and social cues of any number of scenarios. Such a brilliant idea.

It’s taken a while for my boy to be interested in social stories, so they don’t suit everyone and they need to be adjusted to suit each individual they are being written for. There are many examples of social stories on the internet. A simple google search will unearth a huge number of options. However there are a number of basic rules about social stories that make them work best and I think it’s worth getting the lowdown from the creator, if you are interested in pursuing this for your child. The New Social Story Book by Carol Gray is my source book.

Still, I think this one is pretty good (if I say so myself) … so feel free to use it, adapt it and link back.

I also have to credit the Everyday Adventures blog, as I used their social story as a starting point.

For the last 4 days I have been incommunicado, with no internet connection. As a part of our holiday, I have taken the boys out to a small Aboriginal community in Arnhem Land where about 1000 people live a mostly traditional lifestyle. It’s accessible only by air or sea for half the year. This half.

So the boys & I hopped onto a little twin engine plane and headed off across the beautiful tropical, lush wetlands of northern Australia to visit some very dear friends who live in Maningrida.

the little plane

J, my beautiful big 22m baby was happy just going with the flow as usual. N (3yo chatterbox) was super excited with a million questions about what was happening every step of the way. He had no idea where or what Maningrida was, but he was over the moon to be going. When the steward spoke over the PA system and said that we were heading for Maningrida he couldn’t contain himself and cheered loudly ‘Yayyyyyyy Maningriiiiidaaaaaa!!!’ Everyone on the plane got a chuckle out of that.

L, my autistic 6yo was anxious, but contained. He was concerned during the take off, but willingly held onto me and got some comfort and reassurance from that. Once we were in the air, he was absolutely fine. What a huge achievement for him to be a happy, relatively relaxed traveller.

We had a wonderful time catching up with my friends and their tribe of kids. Mine just melded into theirs and L’s more obvious behaviors settled (pushing, screaming & noisemaking) down quickly as he adjusted to this new environment. Their four kids didn’t even raise an eyebrow, but were interested in him and in what autism was. So we talked about that a bit, but mostly we just had a very relaxing time. It really was a weekend of autism acceptance.

We spent half a day at the Territory Wildlife Park. L always enjoys being out in the natural world and is much calmer when surrounded by nature. He was suitably unimpressed with ‘graham’ the saltwater crocodile in the tank directly ahead. The two little boys were much more excited to be up close & personal with a prehistoric killing machine. L did like the cool dark atmosphere of the aquarium.
Thanks to aunty squishy who came with us on our adventure.

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love many trust few, always paddle your own canoe

I'm paddling! My canoe has lots of little kids in it, lots of moments of madness and the occasional moment of clarity. Sometimes it feels like I'm paddling against the current but mostly we go with the flow. I'm a foster carer in Australia.

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